Dogs and GMO's
Overview of GMO's In the most simplest of terms, genetically modified organisms can refer to any organism-plant, animal, bacteria, yeast etc- that have had their genetic material altered in some way. How are dogs GMO's? '''1. Selective Breeding: '''This refers to the process by which humans screen for what traits are desirable in a certain organism. This is one of the main reasons why we have so many different dog breeds today. From the bulldog to the greyhound, there are many different types of dogs and they were made that way because of selective breeding. The way this usually carried out is by the breeder selecting a dog that has the desired trait that they want (i.e wrinkly face). They breed that dog with another dog that has a wrinkly face. The subsequent generation are puppies with wrinkly faces. But not the whole litter will have wrinkly faces. This is due to random mutations that occur in vivo when the puppy is developing. But multiple rounds of this selective breed can reduce the mutations down to almost zero and soon you will only have wrinkly faced puppies. '''Why is this so important?: '''Good question. This is important because humans made it important to have a pure breed dog. A pure breed dog refers to a dog that comes from a long line of dogs that are the same breed and have not mated with a dog from a different breed (i,e. Greyhound mates with Greyhound and not a Great Dane). One could argue that the American Kennel Club (AKC) has made people obsessed with owning pure bred dogs. The other reason why it is so important is that to achieve a pure bred dog a breeder is forced to inbreed or line breed their dog. Inbreeding a dog may cause many different health problems and can result in genetic diseases being passed down from generation to generation. '''2. Ruppy: '''Ruppy or ruby puppy was the first transgenic dog made by researchers in Seoul National University in South Korea. That means that Ruppy was the first dog to ever be produced by cloning. The puppy was a cloned beagle and it produced a fluorescent protein (i.e red fluorescent protein, RFP) which under ultraviolet light would glow red. The mechanism behind this glowing dog is molecular cloning. First, the scientists infected the fibroblast cells of the dog with a virus that carried the fluorescent gene. The fibroblasts are the main cells that make up an animal's connective tissue. Then through somatic-cell nuclear transfer, transferred the nucleus of the body cell with the RFP gene inserted to a germ-line cell that contained no nucleus. This was then implanted in the mother dog and she gave birth to red glowing puppies. '''Why did they do this?: '''The scientists constructed this dog to prove a point. They pointed out in their paper that they think dogs are a better model organism and can be used to study different human diseases. They argued that dogs have similar organ size compared to humans, they share the same environment, and have excellent medical care. This indicated that the RFP could be used to visualize human diseases in these dogs. There are obviously some underlying ethical issues that are not addressed in this article. Many people feel attached to their pets and would not them to be tested on by medical professionals. References American Kennel Club History, http://www.akc.org/about/history.cfm Ruppy, Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruppy "Generation of red florescence protein transgenic dogs", So Gun Hong et al., Genesis Volume 47, Issue 5, Article first published online: 8 APR 2009 "Fluorescent puppy is world's first transgenic dog", Ewen Callaway, New Scientist iss. 2706, 23 April 2009. "World's First Transgenic Dog-Fluorescent 'Ruppy'",Thilaka Ravi, Genetics and Stem Cell News, Med India, April 24, 2009